cross border logisticsThe South Korean truckers' strike entered its seventh day on Monday, Chinese experts said that while the strike might delay shipments of some vehicle components and semiconductor products to China, due to closely intertwined supply chains between the two countries, the overall impact on Chinese industries will be limited.

A strike by the Cargo Truckers Solidarity union in South Korea has spread quickly across one of Asia's manufacturing powerhouses, with chaos at ports and operating cuts by South Korean automobile producers and steelmakers, raising fears of a wider impact on already struggling global supply chains.

The ongoing strike appears to have caused at least 1.6 trillion won ($1.2 billion) in losses in the vehicle, steel, petrochemical and cement sectors, South Korea's industry ministry said on Monday.

Automaker Hyundai Motor said on Friday that it has cut production on some lines but aims to resume operations as soon as possible. Hyundai's Ulsan plant was reported to be operating at 50-60 percent of normal capacity last Thursday.

Zhang Xiang, a research fellow at the Research Center of Automobile Industry Innovation of the North China University of Technology, said that the strike would not have a big impact on the Chinese auto market due to limited imports of South Korean auto products.

Hyundai and Kia sell basically low-end models in China and they have already achieved a high level of localization, Zhang said, while adding that some luxury cars may be affected, as they rely on components and semiconductors from South Korea.

"Generally, traditional car companies hold two weeks of inventories, so if the strike ends soon, it should not have a big impact," Zhang said.

In the first quarter, sales of South Korean cars in China stood at only 94,000 units, down 39.3 percent from a year earlier, and their market share fell below 2 percent, according to the Korea Automobile Manufacturers Association.

As another pillar industry, semiconductor firms have yet to report major production disruptions.

Daily container throughput of 12 ports across the country fell by 64 percent compared with the average level in May, the South Korean transport ministry said on Thursday.

The situation in South Korean ports won't have much of an impact on China's chip sector, Ma Jihua, a veteran industry watcher, told the Global Times on Monday.

"Many companies have contingency plans for this kind of problem. If it is a short-term strike, it should not have a big impact on China's semiconductor supply chain," Ma said.

As a major importer of South Korean semiconductors, the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong accounted for over 60 percent of South Korea's semiconductor export market in 2020.

It is fortunate that the short-term impact of the South Korean strike on China's industry chain will not be significant; however, the incident also come as a warning call for China to step up innovation in key industries in the long run to ensure the resilience of the internal supply chain to cope with external risks, Chen Jia, a research fellow at the International Monetary Institute of the Renmin University of China, told the Global Times on Monday.